No Flu For Me

Well its that time of year again: Flu season. Seems like every corner Walgreens are displaying signs out for the flu shot as well as radio stations playing commercials on different area locations you can get one. I’ve heard a commercial for a local hospital that went as far as providing flu shots via drive thru service this year. You don’t even have to get out of your car now! How convenient is that? Also convenient is that another New Orleans area hospital comes to my office building every year to administer them. MORE convenient than that? My company will pay for the cost of the flu shot for those folks who may be interested.

So this to me sounds like a no-brainer. You will come to my place of work AND its FREE. Cha-ching. Sign me up. But every year when this service comes around to my building you hear the chatter of “Are you getting it?” “Did you go?” “No way! I’m not gonna get sick!” Yep. It’s crazy to me that in 2013 there is still a myth that if you get the flu shot …..you will get the flu. Negative, Ghost Rider. You will NOT get influenza should you opt for the shot. It is simply impossible.

Impossible because the vaccine contains the dead virus. Dead. As in not living. A dead virus cannot infect you. Now there is a side effect of the vaccine that your arm will be sore around the area you were vaccinated. This, people, is just soreness. You do not have body aches from the flu. Secondly the the flu season also happens to be around the time that people get colds or respiratory illnesses. Should you get sick from a bug shortly after you received the vaccine, blame your co-worker that came to work with the sniffles. You do not have influenza.

Every year thousands of people in the United States die from the flu and many more than that are hospitalized. So do yourself a favor. Get the shot. In the long run you will feel better about it and realize you were worried about nothing at all. And if you don’t get it, call it for what it is: you are afraid of needles, its against your religion, etc. Because when you say that your reason is you don’t want to get the flu, it is obviously not a good one.